Still, the
neocons achieved one of their chief goals,
alienating Obama from Putin and making the two
leaders’ collaboration on Syria, Iran and other
trouble spots more unlikely. In other words, the
neocons have kept alive hope that those problems
won’t be resolved through compromise, but rather
might still lead to more warfare.

It's an ahistorical look at events.

Do you remember when Putin and Barack were first at major loggerheads?

I do.

And I remember how C.I. objected to Barack's strategy repeatedly.

How C.I. pointed out that Barack's trashing Putin was elevating Putin.

Do you remember that?

When Ed Snowden ended up in Russia and the White House freaked out, bullied and threatened?

Most of do remember that.

Robert Parry leaves it out because he's too busy smearing dung on his face.

Thursday, July 17, 2014. Chaos and violence continue, Nouri makes a
mess of everything, 'reporter' Hannah Allem piles the blames on others,
fact checking her outlandish lies let's us drop back to the realities
others ignored in real time, how did Nouri get a weaponized drone in
Mosul, did Iraq just get their first suicide bomber from Australia, and
much more.

Nouri al-Maliki is a thug. The 'liberal' media -- Scott Horton's
Antiwar Radio, Amy Goodman's Democracy Now! and so many others -- have
whored for Nouri and they continue to whore for him.

Yesterday on Democracy Now!, Amy Goodman continued
her war against Iraqi Sunnis by booking noted Sunni hater Patrick
Cockburn as well as the always ridiculous Hannah Allem (McClatchy
Newspapers) who somehow, someway, just happens, repeatedly, to slant
things so that Sunnis come off so badly. Now that Patrick's documented
hatred of Sunnis has moved from Arabic social media into the mainstream
media, we can ignore him and just zoom in on Hannah.

Hannah Allem: Down in Najaf, even more important than the
prime minister’s call to arms was the fatwa issued by the Shia highest
authority in Iraq, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. He issued a call to arms
that asked all Iraqis to come and help in the defense of the nation.
And he and his office and officials around him have stressed several
times that that was not a sectarian call to arms, that it was a
patriotic national duty. But that’s not how it’s been interpreted on the
ground, and it’s not how it’s playing out on the ground. It has given
religious cover to the remobilization of militias that the government
spent—and the U.S. military, when it was here, spent—the past several
years trying to disband.

We have to stop Hannah there, the lies are just too intense.

Hannah lies in July of 2014 that Shi'ite militias are reforming.

Really?

In the summer of 2014?

We're going back to October 4, 2013 and the start and the end of the excerpt will be signified by "**********." Excerpt:

Preachers of Friday-prayers called on the sit-inner in their sermons to
continue the sit-ins as are the only way to get rid of injustice and
abuse policy.They said in the common prayer which held in six
regions of Diyala province : " Iraqi government must not deal with the
demands of the protestors in a double standard . Urging worshipers to
unify their stand until getting the demands, release innocent prisoners
and detainees from prisons.

Kitabat reports
that Sheikh Mohammed al-Dulaimi spoke at the Falluja protest and
accused the government of supporting militias who target and kill
Sunnis. The Sheikh said that instead of implementing the demands of the
protesters, the government would rather target or ignore the
protesters. National Iraqi News offers the Sheikh said, ""The Iraqi government rather than implement the demands of the
protesters and adopt genuine reconciliation with people, it tracking and
embarrassing the protest leaders,since 9 Months ago claimants the
usurped legal rights."

Sheikh Mohammed al-Dulaimi is correct in his accusation: Nouri
al-Maliki (prime minister and chief thug of Iraq) is supporting Shi'ite
militias. Tim Arango (New York Times) broke that story last week
-- but somehow the US Congress and the rest of the media missed it.
(The media may be playing dumb. Members of Congress actually missed it,
I spoke with several yesterday about Tim Arango's report.) Arango
noted:

In supporting Asaib al-Haq, Mr. Maliki has apparently made the risky
calculation that by backing some Shiite militias, even in secret, he can
maintain control over the country’s restive Shiite population and,
ultimately, retain power after the next national elections, which are
scheduled for next year. Militiamen and residents of Shiite areas say
members of Asaib al-Haq are given government badges and weapons and
allowed freedom of movement by the security forces.

**********************************

So the October 4th protests were noting that the Shi'ite militias were
regrouping and attacking them and the New York Times' Tim Arango was
even reporting that Nouri al-Maliki was arming and garbing Shi'ite
militias?

Kind of an important detail.

And one of the reasons the Sunnis felt so targeted.

But leave to Whore Hannah to show up in July 2014 and claim that Shi'ite
militias were reforming -- Shi'ite militias who reformed long ago.

Hannah Allem: So we’re talking about groups like Muqtada
al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, which was a splinter
group of the Mahdi Army trained by Iran, close ties to Iran, and several
other Iranian-backed Shia Muslim militias. And then, on top of that,
you’ve got tribes that are offering up tens of thousands of their
members, and you’ve got these just ordinary teenagers, you know, and
young men who are answering the call on religious grounds. So, it’s this
hodgepodge of forces. They really sort of lack a central command. So
far they’ve said that they would all play fair and answer to the
government and work within the government structure. But that’s just
simply not the case. There are just too many people with arms roaming
around with disparate leaders.

Okay, Moqtada's Mahdi Army? I have no idea whether it reformed or not but those rumors of it reforming started in early 2013.

To take the heat off Hannah, let's note the load of the crap that came up next:

NERMEENSHAIKH: Well, last month Democracy Now! interviewed former U.N. special envoy for Syria, Ambassador Lakhdar Brahimi.
He was previously the U.N. special representative for Iraq. He
suggested that sectarianism in Iraq was fostered in the early years of
the U.S. invasion and occupation.

LAKHDARBRAHIMI:
The impression one had was that the people that were preferred by the
occupying powers were the most sectarian Shia and the most pro-Iranian
Shia, so, you know, that Iran—that Iraq is now very, very close to Iran.
Again, from the point of view of somebody who looks at things from
outside, I have absolutely no knowledge of what went on in the high
spheres of power in Washington. The impression we had is that these
people were put in charge either out of total ignorance—and that is
extremely difficult to accept—or intentionally. But the fact is, you
know, that the system that was established was very sectarian.

NERMEENSHAIKH:
Hannah Allam, that was Lakhdar Brahimi, the former U.N. special envoy
for Syria. He was previously the special representative, the U.N.
special representative for Iraq. Could you comment on what he said and
also on reports of the Islamic State’s violence and atrocities, really,
against Sunni Muslims, in addition to Shia and Kurds?

But Nermeen is beyond stupid. Brahimi's a tool, no one expects honesty from tools.

No, the US government -- under Bully Boy Bush -- did not choose to back
Iraqis (Iraqi exiles) because these were Iraqis close to Iran.

That's beyond stupid, it's a lie.

We have to do a back story here.

I don't care for Naomi Klein. The woman's a piece of trash. She became
that before she whored (and lied) for Barack. She became a piece of
trash as she did the bare minimum a Canadian activist could do for war
resisters. She'd sign a petition but that's about little Naomi could
manage.

She certainly wouldn't stand with them. She wrongly feared she'd loose access to the United States.

No, she wouldn't have. She was an American citizen. Bully Boy Bush couldn't have kept her out of the country.

What's that?

She's Canadian?

Yeah, she has dual citizenship. Because her parents are Americans. Her mother and her father.

Her parents went to Canada during Vietnam. Her father was a war resister.

So for that trashy mall rat Naomi Klein to refuse to share her story,
her family's narrative to make the case for the need for Canada to offer
asylum to war resisters as they did during Vietnam?

I have no use for Naomi Klein.

As the late, great Cass Elliot used to say, "I wouldn't piss on her if she were on fire." That's how I feel about Naomi.

But when she briefly cared about Iraq, she was able to make the point that realities in Iraq weren't accidents.

And we would note her Harper's essay and expand on it to point out that
you have to make the people docile and fearful if you want to take them
down "Year Zero."

The US government backed the exiles they did because those exiles would
terrorize the Iraqi people -- keep the people fearful of safety while
the US government and the installed Iraqis worked to fleece the country.

Let's go back to Hannah. We're picking right back up but don't worry
about the question she was asked because Hannah talks about what Hannah
wants to.

HANNAHALLAM:
Sure. I think it’s important to note that the Islamic State is not
doing this land grab, this insurgency alone. It has a lot of support,
really crucial support, especially for holding territories that it
seized, from, again, this mixture of former Baathists, ex-military and
intelligence from the old regime, some tribes. And the reason they’ve
been able to cultivate some support among those community—well, some are
just, you know, against the whole political system that was established
under the U.S. occupation.

Still with Hannah but I really want you to pay attention to what she says next:

Some haven’t come to terms with the loss of
their former power and prestige. But then there are a wide swath of
Sunni communities who are simply fed up with the sectarian policies
they’ve seen under this administration of Nouri al-Maliki.

Some Sunnis haven't come to terms with a loss of power and prestige?

Am I the only one who can see Hannah taking two skips to the right in order to next justify slavery?

Hannah is such a damn xenophobe.

Power and prestige weren't the issues for the Sunni people.

It's cute how Nouri never gets called out by the Hannahs.

This has been addressed at length in the UK's Iraq Inquiry.

Paul Bremer kicked off de-Ba'athification -- sending many Sunnis (and
Shi'ites) out of the government. This was a huge mistake -- British
intelligence saw it as such, check the testimonies to the Iraq Inquiry.
And a huge mistake was made worse by Nouri

He was supposed to end de-Ba'athifaction. This was supposed to allow
the country to unify and Nouri promised to do this in 2007. This was
part of the benchmarks the White House came up with.

McClatchy reported on those benchmarks repeatedly -- they did so badly, but they did so repeatedly.

Hannah Allem: And I think
we should point out he [Nouri] first ran on a platform that was considered
nationalist. He went after Shia militias in the south, and people
thought, OK, maybe this isn’t going to be as sectarian as we feared.

What?

Shi'ite militias in the south?

Oh, the Mahdi. Yeah, with the US, he went after one Shi'ite militia, the militia of his political rival Moqtada al-Sadr.

One militia. Hannah's always got to lie. She's the proud mommy with the
unaccomplished son so she just makes s**t up and hopes no one catches
on.

A coalition of oppositions composed of resentful Sunni groups, former
Ba'athists and the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) - or from
its Arabic acronym as Da'ish - has been able to control most of the
Sunni populated Iraq territory (except for the Kurdistan region),
including Mosul, the second biggest city of Iraq, within a short time.
Such a sudden contagion, shows on one hand, the weakness and
ineffectiveness of the Iraqi central army and on the other hand depicts
the coalition of opposition as an important and powerful actor that
cannot be ignored in Iraq anymore. There are also signals showing that
this de facto situation will remain for a long time and may even be
permanent. When the PM of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Nechirvan Barzani
said that "it is difficult to be able to return to the order before
Mosul in Iraq" in an interview on the BBC, he was most probably
referring to this reality. The conflict which has become particularly
violent is escalating in Iraq and transforming into an inhuman situation
with casualties increasing day by day. Hate speech by Nouri al-Maliki
and violent acts against Shia by the coalition under ISIS patronage have
deepened the separation and conflict between Sunni and Shia Muslims not
only in Iraq but also on the whole planet. Some regional powers have
made great contributions both in design and ideology to this sectarian
conflict. If this conflict is not resolved in a short time, all the
regional countries will be negatively affected in terms of economic,
social and political stability, particularly the actors that are trading
with Iraq (essentially with the Kurdistan region), including Turkey. In
such a case, regional escalation of a lasting, comprehensive and
sectarian conflict is unavoidable.

See, if you're not Hannah, you can speak honestly about Iraq.

NINA reports 1 person was killed today in Mosul and five more were left injured.

What's curious is the weapon used. A drone.

US President Barack Obama has insisted that no US drones were being used
as weapons as yet in Iraq and those present were in Baghdad.

U.S. defense officials are tamping down any talk of a quick decision on what to do next in Iraq.And on Wednesday, Mr. Obama addressed a range of foreign policy
challenges, including the Afghanistan elections, negotiations with Iran
over its nuclear program, the fighting between Israel and Hamas, and
Russian provocations in Ukraine, but there was no mention of imminent
action in Iraq. In fact, Mr. Obama didn’t mention Iraq at all.What’s going on?

A fresh assessment of Iraq’s security forces prepared by U.S.
military teams working in Iraq was delivered to the Pentagon this week.
It wasn’t exactly a sunny outlook, but Rear Adm. John Kirby, the
Pentagon press secretary, said that while defense leaders felt a sense
of urgency, they were not going to rush their work.

Dahr Jamail observes (in a repost at The Nation), " What is left of Iraq, this mess that is no longer a country, should be
considered the legacy of decades of US policy there, dating back to the
moment when Saddam Hussein was in power and enjoyed Washington’s
support. With Maliki, it has simply been a different dictator, enjoying
even more such support (until these last weeks), and using similarly
barbaric tactics against Iraqis."

Vietnam veteran Roland Van Deusen writes the Watertown Daily Times to share his thoughts on Iraq which include:Since we left Iraq, the government we set up there has replaced
almost every senior officer in the Iraqi army with Shi’ite yes-men,
regardless of their military ability. Three hundred U.S. advisers won’t
undo this damage before ISIS threatens to topple Iraq’s government.

That
government refused John Kerry’s condition that our defending them
depends upon their sharing power with Sunnis and Kurds. Yet now our
adviser/grunts are on the ground, with another 200 on the way, in spite
of our president’s saying the answer to this crisis is political, not
military. Why are we there?

“I think he has to go,” Poe told TRNS
after a subcommittee meeting on Tuesday. “He needed to go a long time
ago. He’s incompetent and has the inability to lead, and he can’t lead
all the people in Iraq. He’s trying to preserve his fiefdom, and rulers
in that situation have many times dealt in an unreal world, and do not
know they have lost their credibility and authority, and he is one of
those.”

Since begging the US government to provide 'traineers' and 'advisors' on
the ground in Iraq, Nouri has demonstrated that he will not change one
bit. His latest tantrum has only further inflamed tensions in Iraq. Press TV notes:Iraq’s Kurds have just recently announced plans for a referendum on the
independence of the semi-autonomous Kurdish province.The Arab League
however has downplayed the significance of these plans as “media
talk”.Meanwhile, the Kurds, including ministers in the Iraqi cabinet,
continue to disengage from Baghdad completely, following accusations by
Prime Minister Maliki that Erbil was harboring ISIL terrorists.

PNA notes, "Iraqi
Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari has urged PM Nouri Maliki to apologise
for saying the Kurdish region authorities are sheltering extremists."
But when has Nouri ever worked to clean up one of his own messes?Robin Wright (New Yorker) notes Nouri's problems with the Kurds:

The Kurds have many reasons to split off. They’re furious with
Baghdad, which since January has refused to fork over the Kurds’ share
of the national kitty. They’re terrified of the sweeping territorial
conquests by the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS),
an Al Qaeda offshoot, which is now poised along a six-hundred-mile
border with Kurdistan that the Iraqi Army abruptly abandoned last month.
And they’re engaged in a war of words with Iraq’s Prime Minister, Nouri
al-Maliki, about stepping aside to let a new government salvage the
nation. Last week, Maliki accused the Kurds of aiding ISIS militants. He fired all the Kurds in his cabinet, including the stalwart Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari.

“He has become hysterical and has lost his balance,” Barzani, who is
now Kurdistan’s President, said in an unusually peppery statement on July 10th.
“He is doing everything he can to justify his failures and put the
blame on others.” Barzani noted that Maliki himself had once taken
refuge from Saddam’s dictatorship in Kurdistan—and that others were now
taking refuge from Maliki. Barzani also told the BBC, “Iraq is effectively partitioned now. Are we supposed to stay in this tragic situation?”

Those factors would make many tread lightly -- but not Nouri al-Maliki.
He just stomps his feet, creates more problems and then begs others to
clean up his mess.

Let's turn to violence. Warwick Daily News notes,
"The first Australian suicide bomber in Iraq reportedly killed three
people in the heart of Baghdad on Thursday, raising the involvement of
local jihadists in the spiraling violence to a chilling new level." IS
used a Tweet to note the bombing and dub the bomber Abu Bark
al-Australi. 3 News adds, "If the man is confirmed to be Australian, he will be the first from his
country to have been involved in carrying out a suicide bombing in Iraq.

Thursday, July 17, 2014

July 16, 2014 "ICH"
-
I write both as a Democrat (which Barack Obama
merely claims to be, but shows by his actions that
he is not) and as an American (which he,
unfortunately, actually is, but which Republicans
often deny), in the hope of preserving the honor not
just of my Country, but of my Party, both of which
he violates routinely.When President
Obama refused to allow the prosecution of George W.
Bush and Dick Cheney for their manifest crimes,
after they had been in office (their having lied
this country into invading a country that was no
imminent threat to the United States, tortured
people, violated the 4th Amendment by unleashing the
NSA against the American public, unleashed Wall
Street crooks against the American people via MBS
frauds, etc.), Obama thereby took upon himself
Bush’s and Cheney’s crimes, as being his own. Those
crimes still need to be prosecuted — now by America
prosecuting Obama himself, for his covering them up:
he still does it, after all of these years. Those
crimes are no less heinous and, indeed, no less
treasonous, now that a so-called “Democrat” is
hiding them, than they were when his self-acknowledged
Republican predecessors, and now in some cases even
the fake “Democrat” Obama himself, were and have
been and still are perpetrating them. They still
need to be prosecuted, in order for the U.S. to
possess any honor going forward, and any realistic
hope of a better future for our nation. Without
accountability, there is nothing but dictatorship.
That’s the reality of our situation. The people who
possess power without accountability are our
dictators: they stand above the law; we stand below
the law, as their subjects, no longer as
authentically American citizens, for they have
stolen our democracy from us, and made it into their
own kingdom, instead. This is not America; and for
us to accept it as if it were, would be for us to
defile our great Founders, who waged their
Revolution in order to defeat such tyrants — tyrants
who now have come back from the dead, only with
different faces and names.

That's the opening of a great piece.

Reading it, I thought about crazy ass Naomi Wolf who used to go around the talk show circuit, in the Bully Boy Bush years saying that society was closing in America due to spying and other things, that democracy was dying. Things are worse now than they were then.

But where[s Naomi?

Hiding in the shadows.

She claimed she endorsed Barack in 2008 and campaigned for him because he believed in the Constitution and would protect civil liberties.

Wednesday, July 16, 2014. Chaos and violence continue, the Senate
Veterans Affairs Committee holds a hearing, we note the House Veterans
Affairs Committee hearing again, new calls for Nouri al-Maliki to step
aside, and much more.

Ranking Member Richard Burr: Since our last hearing there have been
several developments related to the scheduling irregularities across the
VA and its negative impact on patient care. VA's begun to take the
necessary steps to address the systemic problem and the corrosive
culture that have been identified and substantiated by several
independent sources. However, these changes will not happen overnight.
And this Committee must provide the critical oversight to ensure those
changes occur and are effective. [. . .] At the time of the May 15th
hearing, there were several stakeholders who did not want to rush to
judgment until the allegations surrounding Phoenix had been
substantiated. Since that hearing, the IG released an interim report
regarding the allegations of scheduling irregularities and a secret wait
list at the Phoenix VA Healthcare System.
Not only did the IG substantiate scheduling irregularities and a secret
wait list at Phoenix, but the IG identified roughly 1,700 veterans that
were waiting for appointments and were not included on appropriate
electronic wait lists. The IG found that scheduling irregularities are a
systemic issue across VA's healthcare system and this was not an
isolated event.
Additionally, the IG has received numerous allegations regarding
"mismanagement, inappropriate hiring decisions, sexual harassment, and
bullying behavior by mid- and senior- level managers at this facility."
These allegations speak to the corrosive culture that has taken deep
roots throughout the entire Department.
Within a 3 week period, the Office of Special Counsel released a
statement on VA whistle-blower reprisals and sent a letter to the
President regarding VA's lack of responsiveness to OSC requests. In this
letter, the OSC describes the Office of Medical Inspector's consistent
use of "a 'harmless error' defense, where the Department acknowledges
problems but claims patient care is unaffected."

Senator Jon Tester prattled on about how more doctors were needed, that
the answer wasn't "scheduling more patients for the doctors." Prattled
on really described the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee period.
Ranking Member Richard Burr, Senator Patty Murray and a few others had
things of value to say. But most offered platitudes.

I'm being kind, but "stay the course"? That hoary, old trope? And from a Democrat?

I'm being kind and not calling that senator out -- or even offering a name.

But that's what we got instead of anything of value.

Tester wants you to know the answer is not scheduling more appointments for doctors.

That may be what his words said in terms of text but the subtext was: I don't do my homework.

There is a House Veterans Affairs Committee and a Senate one. The Senate version has become a joke.

Senators being unaware of what the House has already addressed in their
hearings does not make the Senate look any smarter. Senator Mike
Johanns made a passing reference to the House's Monday night VA hearing
so at least he's semi-aware of the work the other Committee is doing.
One member of the Senate Committee did pay attention and we'll note
that later in the snapshot.

On the House Committee, they have members who are doctors.

Jon Tester isn't a doctor.

Why is it that, for example, US House Rep Phil Roe is so much wiser on issues of medicine than Senator Tester?

Maybe because Phil Roe is also Doctor Roe -- a medical doctor who's had his own practice.

And that's why Tester always whines about the lack of doctors -- and
he's whine about it for years -- but Roe's the one pointing out how much
time VA doctors are forced to waste because the VA refuses to hire
assistants who can work the charts and paper work and free up time that
doctors can use -- can use, Tester -- to see more patients.

I'm all for more doctors. But the VA's gotten everything it's asked for
-- regardless of who was in the White House -- for over a decade now.
And Congress has given it to them.

Uninformed members of Congress like Jon Tester.

I'm not a medical expert by any means -- and Tester probably knows more
about medicine than I do -- but I am smart enough to listen when a
doctor speaks and go back and ask friends -- in practice at the VA and
in the civilian world -- "These things Dr. Roe is talking about, does
this make sense?"

And when I'm told repeatedly that, yes, they do, I start to get really
irritated at people who just want to toss money at a problem as opposed
to actually fixing it.

Let's note Senator
Patty Murray, Chair of the Senate Budget Committee. She serves on the
Senate Veterans Affairs Committee and her office issued the following
today:

Washington, D.C. – Today,
U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) a senior member of the Senate Veterans’
Affairs Committee, delivered remarks at a committee hearing on the
State of VA Health Care with Acting Secretary Sloan Gibson.
In her opening remarks, Murray continued her call to address the
systemic problems at the VA in order to ensure veterans are getting the
care and support they deserve.

Full Text of Senator Murray’s Remarks:

“Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this hearing.

“As we all know, this is a critical time for the Department.

“VA
is still struggling with major systemic problems, there are many
vacancies in key leadership positions, and most importantly, veterans
are still waiting too long
for care.

“Secretary Gibson, as we discussed yesterday, I appreciate you stepping up during this crisis.

So many on the Committee can't say that. (And we'll be coming back to Burr later in the snapshot.)

In fairness to Tester, he brings tremendous knowledge of what rural
veterans' needs are. He has other areas of strength as well. But when a
doctor who serves in the Congress outlines how the VA is wasting
doctors' time that could be spent seeing veterans, I think the Senate
needs to be aware of that.

The Senate Veterans Affairs Committee is suffering right now from
grandstanding -- from people who rush in with their prepared soundbyte
on veterans then quickly rush out of the hearing (a tactic US House Rep
Barbara Lee resorted to repeatedly during the Bully Boy Bush years when
she wanted to pretend she was anti-war). It's cheap and it's tacky. It
might fool the media (or the media might just want to be fooled);
however, veterans are noting it and this nonsense of showing up with
your grand standing opening statements -- that are vague and full of
meaningless applause lines -- and then ducking out is not playing well.

Let's close on the hearing with this from Senator Jon Tester insisted
that some members of the Conference Committee "are balking at the cost.
We just shipped 800 folks off to Iraq. I didn't hear one person talk
about cost." Well we did talk about the need for the cost to be
addressed. We talked about it here. I noted it was outrageous that the
Congress wasn't asking for dollar numbers. But I don't serve in the
House or Senate.

I didn't hear Jon Tester raise the issue of cost, let alone 'balk' at
it. But he is a member of the Senate. So maybe he should have?

(And while he was bringing up the silence on that, the issue was being
raised in a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee.)

Equally true, Tester's been silent on thug Nouri al-Maliki. Others
spoke out against him -- and did so even if it cost them. Iraq's Vice
President Tareq al-Hashemi continues to live outside of Iraq. As he has
since the end of 2011. Nouri issued an arrest warrant for Tareq, tried
him in absentia and got Tareq sentenced to the death penalty at least
five time.

The Sunni politician also stressed that the wider
international community shared the blame for Iraq’s descent into chaos.
Human rights organisations have documented the deterioration of human
rights during Mr Al Maliki’s time in power, he said, “but all those
countries that invaded my country in 2003 and talked about respecting
human rights, transparency and democratic values, which Iraqis accepted,
they did not follow up”.

Mr Al Hashemi, who raised eyebrows last
month when he called the Islamic State’s capture of Mosul, Iraq’s second
city, “a revolution”, reiterated that the extremists, known to execute
their opponents and punish those who fall foul of their rules with
flogging, amputation and crucifixion, was only the most visible of the
Sunni militant groups fighting Mr Al Maliki. “They are only one part of the spectrum in this revolution”, though “also the most influential”, he said.Once
Mr Al Maliki is out of the way and Sunnis regain a voice in national
politics, they will shake off extremist groups such as Islamic State, Mr
Al Hashemi said.

AFP reports on calls for thug Nouri to step aside and not seek a third term as prime minister of Iraq:

“That’s part of the solution. An important
part,” said Sheikh Ali al-Najafi, spokesman for his father Grand
Ayatollah Bashir al-Najafi, referring to Maliki’s ouster.

“This is the point of view of the marja
al-Najafi,” he told AFP on Monday, a “marja” being one of majority Shia
Iraq’s four most senior Shia religious leaders, known as the marjaiya.

The most senior of the marjaiya, Grand
Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, through a spokesman has already called for the
“formation an effective government that is acceptable on a ... national
level (and) avoids past mistakes”.

Mehmet Celik (Daily Sabah) observes, "Maliki had the chance to reconcile with Iraqis after the elections,
where he promised to establish law and order, however, he chose to use
state terror, violence, and exclusionary politics against the Sunnis and
the Kurds. Thus, Maliki did not have the support of his people to
defend Iraq. ISIS's forces are capturing cities one at a time and
marching toward Baghdad, Iranian drones are flying over Iraq, the U.S.
army is now part of the conflict, there is no legitimate law or order to
govern Iraq, yet, Maliki has not resigned. "

We argued weeks before the April 30th parliamentary elections that a new
prime minister -- someone other than thug Nouri al-Maliki (and someone
not seen as Nouri's stooge) -- could provide a reset.

Violence would not vanish but the level of violence might decrease.

A new prime minister could restore -- even briefly -- hope that things might change.

That possibility is not open-ended.

And that's been demonstrated. As the press kept calling Nouri the next
prime minister after the elections -- despite his not winning enough
seats to justify that call, violence in Iraq increased.

As hard as that was for some to picture happening in March when things
were already bad in terms of violence, things have gotten even worse.

There's not a lot of time for a reset to work.

Equally true, the more weeks it takes, the more 'anyone' doesn't fill the blank.

The more weeks it takes, the more it will insist that someone like Ammar
al-Hakim, Moqtada al-Sadr, Ayad Allawi, Ibrahim al-Jaafari or someone
of that stature whose seen as seeing Iraq as a cohesive country made up
of Iraqis -- not a loose confederation of sects -- will be needed as
prime minister.

Time is running out.

The US government needs to strongly convey that and maybe they need to
stop helping Nouri with his targeting of this group for a bombing and
that group. (I think they should for War Crimes reasons but I'm saying
it's also helping to prop him up.)

All Iraq News notes
KRG President Massoud Barazni informed Ibrahim al-Jaafari that the
Kurds continue to reject Nouri as prime minister for a third term.

People, including the US government, better be listening. While every
other Iraqi leader (I'm not including Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani)
has suffered some form of setback in the last 12 months, Barzani hasn't.
He's actually increased his popularity -- and not just among Sunnis
(and the USAID poll that the State Dept's silent on right now bears that
out).

And this can't keep up, you can't expect people to keep hoping and hoping and hoping.

It's time for the Iraqi Parliament to get a president and name a prime minister-designate.

Refusal to do is just going to increase the violence.

It's obvious that Nouri's refusing to go quietly. The tension is mounting along with the fear over a third term of Nouri.

Margaret Griffis (Antiwar.com) counts
51 dead from violence in Iraq today. On violence, Iraq's religious
minorities are being targeted. And the US has offered no one to champion
the religious minorities. Morgan Lee (Christian Post) reports:The Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty
Commission President Russell Moore has called on President Barack Obama
to fill the Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom,
which has been vacant since Suzanne Johnson Cook resigned in October.Moore specifically recommended that the President nominate outgoing
Rep Frank Wolf, R.-Va., who has already announced that he will not run
for reelection this year.

The office remains empty as Mark von Riedemann and John Newton (Independent Catholic News) report:The head of the Catholic Church in Iraq has warned EU leaders that
Christians – present in the country for almost 2,000 years – could all
but disappear unless the violence is halted. Patriarch Louis Raphael I
Sako, head of the Chaldean Catholic Church – Iraq's largest Christian
community – told EU representatives that unless a peaceful resolution is
found, "Christians will be left with just a symbolic presence in Iraq.
If they leave, their history is finished."Amid worsening political turmoil in Iraq, Aid to the Church in Need
invited a delegation to Brussels headed by Patriarch Sako last
Wednesday.

Accompanied by Syrian Catholic Archbishop Yohanna Petros Mouche of
Mosul and Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Youssif Mirkis of Kirkuk, the
patriarch met EU Council President Herman Van Rompuy as well as members
of the European Commission and Parliament.

Cassandra? We've been that on many things here. But an e-mail noted I was right about Patrick Cockburn and offered this column by Faisal J. Abbas.
I was 'right' about Cockburn -- he hates Sunnis -- mainly because
Arabic social media has been on this story for years. I started calling
Cockburn out when a Sunni community member e-mailed.

To be clear, I did not 'discover' Cockburn's bias. I did not lead the
way on it. We have noted it. We have frequently been the only English
language site to do so and that might be why someone's attempting to
give me credit for it.

No.

It's neither deserved nor earned.

Arabic social media caught on to Cockburn long ago. They're the ones
who raised the issue. So the credit goes to Arabic social media users
and bloggers because they blazed the trail on that. All I did was
amplify their criticisms. That's so minor it deserves no credit but
applause for the Arabic social media community who refused to be silent
in the face of Patrick Cockburn's bias against Sunnis.

Ranking Member Richard Burr: Mr. Sloan, I want to focus a few
moments on data integrity and specifically at the VBA. I want to give
you a few examples of some testimony at the VA provided by the Office of
the Inspector General and the General Accounting Office in a House
hearing Monday night. The Inspector General made this statement -- and I
quote all of these, "We have concerns that VBA's goals are not
realistic and [are] comprised by data integrity issues." Quote: "We're
receiving a number of complaints regarding mail mismanagement,
manipulation of dates of claims and other data integrity issues in the
Baltimore, Philadelphia and Los Angeles, Oakland and Houston VA regional
offices. And today we received an additional allegation regarding the
Little Rock VA regional office. We are concerned about how quickly the
list of regional offices with allegations is growing." Quote: "VBA
removed all provisional rated claims from its pending inventory. VBA's
process misrepresented the actual work load of pending claims and its
progress towards eliminating the overall claims backlog." Quote: "An
Office of Inspector General team sent to Philadelphia regional office
on June 19, 2014 determined that there were significant opportunities
for regional offices to manipulate and input incorrect dates of claims
in the electronic record, incorrect application of data claims
compromises data integrity related to timeliness of claims processing."
Then there's this exchange that took place between Congressman [Gus]
Bilirakis and the Assistant I[nspector] G[eneral] Linda Halliday. Mr.
Bilirakis said, "You remarked in your opening statement that VBA
self-reported a decrease in the national backlog of more than 50% since
March 2013. Do you trust those numbers?" Ms. Halliday: "At this point, I
would say 'no.' I can't trust those numbers. I think we have a lot of
work ahead of us to address the allegations we've just received. They
all seem to focus on data integrity and they need to be looked at very
carefully so I don't want to say I trust them." Near the end of the
hearing, Congressman [Beto] O'Rourke asked Ms. Halliday, and I quote,
"One of the things that you said in your opening comment that struck me
was that some of the success may be compromised by data integrity
issues. Anything that Secretary [Allison] Hickey has said tonight that
alleviates those concerns that you raised in your opening statement?"
Ms. Halliday simply responded, "No."

Monday night, the House Veterans Affairs Committee held a hearing. We noted some of it in Tuesday's snapshot.
We're noting some of it today. Grasp that what Ranking Member Burr
noted of the hearing is important but that it's not even all of the
important from that hearing.

Where is the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee? Why aren't they doing a
damn thing. Not only was there the issues Burr pointed to, it was also
true that the VA attempted to record agents of Congress as they
questioned VA workers. US House Rep Jeff Miller is the Chair of the
House Veterans Affairs Committee. Monday's hearing included a panel of
whistle-blowers. It also included a panel of VA officials including the
infamous and notorious liar Allison Hickey.

House Committee Chair Jeff Miller: [. . .] I instructed the Committee
staff to make a visit to the Philadelphia regional office on the second
of July, 2014. As of the 20th of June, specific concerns that we've
heard some tonight had been raised on the management or more accurately
mismanagement of that office. And I did want our staff to spend a day
on the ground to perform a technical review of some of the various
files, view the office and meet with some of the individuals who work
there. This is a customary thing for our staff to do. So let me run
through what occurred on this unannounced visit. My staff alerted the
office of Congressional Legislative Affairs of their imminent arrival at
approximately nine o'clock in the morning and about 20 minutes later
they arrive and are greeted by an employee of the regional office and
they were accompanied to a conference room on the fourth floor. Within
moments of arrival, while waiting for the acting director of the
regional office, one of my staff went to the restroom on the fourth
floor and there was another individual who was in the restroom who had
set a yellow notepad not far from the sink and when my staff member and
when my staff member went by the sink, they noticed there was writing at
the top of the page that was circled. In fact, we've got a copy of it,
I'd like to go ahead and post it if we can so everyone can see it.
Members you have a copy of this, it's the yellow legal pad. And two
names were circled at the top of the page. Now these two employees were
from the regional office and they both had acted as whistle-blowers to
improper acts in the past. Alright, my staff then looked at the
remainder of the page and on it were written my staff members' names for
information as their status for the Committee of Veterans Affairs. And
if you will notice about mid-way down, you'll see where the word
"ignore" was followed by one of my staff member's names -- so you see
the word "ignore" just, it looks like, to the left of the pen. But
before I finish the timeline for the members' benefit, the person who
exited the bathroom with the yellow notepad in hand was the acting
director Lucy Filipov of the Philadelphia Regional Office and now the
acting director had met with my staff later in the conference room and
when requested who had provided notice of the visit, she stated she had
not spoken with OCLA but instead had only spoken with Diana Rubins
regarding the Congressional staff's arrival. She then began the
conference with two comments. First, she said the Philadelphia regional
office endeavors to do all things with integrity and give proper
benefits to veterans. Second, she made a curious statement when taken
in the context of Ms. Filipov's possession of the notepad with the name
of two of our whistle-blowers at the top -- that were circled. She said
it's difficult to have employees or ex-employees who say we are not
doing a good job.

Filipov then insisted that the Congressional staff would conduct any and
all interviews in a third floor office. Upon discovering the third
floor office had microphones and recording devices, Miller's staff
refused to use the office.Chair Jeff Miller: . . . You will not ignore this Committee anymore.
And be on notice, you will not ignore our staff that is acting as
this Committee's agents as well. The Committee has Constitutional
oversight and I intend that it shall be carried out unhindered on behalf
of the American public and on behalf of the nation's veterans. If you
look very carefully, if you put this note back up, there are some pretty
derogatory comments that are on this. [C.I. note: One Congressional
staffer is called an "ass."] Would anybody at the table like to comment
about the comments that are written on this piece of paper? Ms.
Hickey, you're welcome to comment.Allison Hickey: Chairman, without question, without question, we
respect the oversight of this Committee and your staff. What occurred on
that day was not acceptable and not indicative of the normal ways in
which Ms. Rubin might behave. And I know that she has been on visits
with your staff and even with members of this Committee before. And I
think if we reflect on those visits in the last year, you would say she
did not repeat similar behaviors. But I will not excuse it. I have not
excused it with her. And we -- And I will just tell you without
question it is unacceptable and I offer on behalf of the Dept my sincere
apologies to your staff who experienced it that day and my commitment
that it will not happen again and that you will receive absolutely with
open arms and full-leaning-in support anything that you need on any
visit that you go on.

Allison Hickey is such a damn liar.

There's no nice way to put it. And if you've endured her previous lying
you not only understand why the American Legion called for her
resignation in May, but you know she never stops lying. She lies to
Congress about numbers -- numbers they have before them and she lies
about them.

She's said to be the 'brain' behind the con game (slap a partial rating
on a disability claim -- any rating at all, call the claim done even
though it's going to be appealed because the appeals don't count towards
the backlog). She certainly was in charge of selling it to Congress.

She's just a liar.

Chair Miller noted Diane Rubin came to the Committee and lied that she
wasn't involved in any of it. Miller asks Hickey what she thinks of
that and Hickey -- with a trembling voice -- insists that Rubin was
there to make an honest apology. No, there's nothing honest about it
was someone else's fault. Or someone else called the staff member an
"ass." Hickey admits, in the exchange, that Rubin did do that, called
the staff member and an "ass" and much more. But Hickey refuses to call
Rubin a liar when asked about Rubin trying to pass that off, to the
Committee, as someone else having said it, not her.Chair Jeff Miller: Ms. Rubens came to our Committee offices and when
she did, she did not apologize for that. What she said was, she had
told the acting director to ignore what other people might be saying
about my staff. And you're telling me this person is still employed?
Even though she gave a directive to not tell an agent of this Committee
what was happening at the regional office?Allison Hickey: Chairman Miller, I will say again without question,
without question, we respect the oversight of every single one of you on
this Committee and in these hallowed halls

I'm not interested in her damn lies. She lies over and over.

She should have been fired long ago but she's part of the corruption and
the lies of the VA and that she thought she would get away with lying
yet again?

Chair Jeff Miller responded, "So I'll take that as a 'no' that Ms.
Rubens did not lie, even though she did. Again, your commitment is
appreciated but it is not believed." Nothing Hickey says is to be
believed.

Ranking Member Richard Burr: Under Secretary Hickey was the one that
testified for the VA and despite her testimony -- which was refuted by
the Inspector General and the GAO -- the VA put out a press release the
very next day entitled "VA Takes Action to Ensure Data Integrity of Disability Claims"
in which the VA touts that it's reduced the backlog claims by 55%, has
reduced the number of days it takes to process claims and has improved
its accuracy rate to over 90%. Now listen, you've said that you've got
to gain the trust of the Committee, of the veterans, of the country and I
think we agree with you. Let me ask you, how smart was that press
release? Did you sign off on that press release? And how can numbers
that are refuted by the people that are actually doing the investigation
of VA facilities -- how can they refute the numbers and the next day VA
come out with the same [false] numbers and tout them?Acting VA Secretary Sloan Gibson: Senator, I think, as you've noted,
trust is the foundation of everything we do and where there are
questions about what -- about data integrity, I think we've got to bore
into those very deeply. There are a number of issues that have been
raised there. I could sit and go through and pick at an item or two but
the fundamental issue remains that there is -- there are questions
about whether or not we've got good data integrity there. And just as
we are undertaking independent reviews in the VHA side, we'll undertake
those in the VBA side.Ranking Member Richard Burr: Mr. Secretary, they've been under way.
Much of it initiated by members of this Committee with the Inspector
General, with the General Accounting Office. And you've acknowledged
the shortcomings on the VHA side. This is fresh, this is this week.
And still the press releases stresses that the VA will continue to post
these performance data on their website. How does publicizing suspect
data increase the integrity and the trust --

Gibson interrupted and began sharing his personal backstory. The name
of this website is The Common Ills -- not The James Boswell. So we'll
leave it to someone else to tell the tale of Sloan Gibson.

Tuesday, July 15, 2014. Chaos and violence continue, Iraq gets a new
Speaker of Parliament, Nouri pouts, when will the press seriously cover
the VA scandals (no time soon), and much more.

The Iraqi Parliament met today and focused on their third attempt to meet and begin forming a government.

All Iraq News notes they met and began the process of electing a Speaker of Parliament. NINA reports:MP , Salim al-Jubori win candidate for Itihad al-Qowa al-Iraqiya headed
by former Speaker Osama Nujaifi win the new post of Parliament the post
of new Speaker after announcing the results of voting in the house of
representatives after noon today.

APA adds, "Live television footage broadcast from inside the parliamentary chamber
showed the 43-year-old being congratulated by other deputies." The White House issued the following today:

Biden’s Call with Next Iraqi Council of Representatives Speaker

15 July 2014

THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Vice President July 15, 2014Readout of Vice President Biden's Call with Iraqi Council of Representatives Speaker Salim al-JabouriThis afternoon, Vice President Biden called Salim al-Jabouri to
congratulate him on his selection as the next Speaker of the Iraqi
Council of Representatives. The Vice President and Speaker agreed on the
importance of acting quickly, consistent with constitutional timelines,
to form a new government capable of uniting Iraqi communities in the
fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. They discussed
the efforts required to address the legitimate grievances of all
communities through the political process. They both reaffirmed the
importance of the strategic relationship between the United States and
Iraq. The Vice President made clear that the United States looks forward
to working closely with Speaker al-Jabouri.

The US State Dept issued this statement from Secretary of State John Kerry:

We congratulate the Iraqi people on the
election of a new parliamentary Speaker and two Deputy Speakers. The
election of a Speaker is the first step in the critical process of
forming a new government that can take into account the rights,
aspirations, and legitimate concerns of all Iraq’s communities.We urge Iraq’s leaders to follow this achievement with rapid
formation of a new government pursuant to Iraq's constitutional
timelines. We further urge the international community to support Iraq's
democratic political process, which reflects the aspirations of the
nearly 14 million Iraqis who voted for new representatives from all
parts of the country. These representatives are now charged, through the
Iraqi parliament, to form a new government with leaders who reflect a
broad national consensus.As I said in Baghdad, this is a moment when the stakes for Iraq’s
future could not be clearer as much depends on the ability of Iraq’s
leaders to come together and take a united stand against ISIL. Iraq
faces an existential threat and Iraq’s leaders need to confront that
threat with the urgency that it demands. As they do, the United States
will remain a steadfast partner in support of their fight for the
democratic process and against ISIL.

Ibrahim al-Jaafari, Maliki's
predecessor and now head of his Shi'ite National Alliance, hinted that a
wider deal had been reached, saying the Shi'ite alliance was voting for
Jabouri and expected support from Sunni politicians in return."It
is the nature of any deal that any commitment should be mutual. It
doesn't make sense that we support them and they don't support us,"
Jaafari said. However, he did not specify whether the National Alliance
would now nominate Maliki for prime minister or choose another
candidate.

Anything could happen.

But Reuters establishes no reason for their pondering re: Nouri. The vote today?

Isn't it what the Shi'ite groups -- including Ibrahim's National
Alliance -- agreed to in a flurry of meetings on Friday and Saturday?
Yes, it is. Only Nouri's State of Law refused to go along with it.

So why would the vote on the Speaker possibly mean that Nouri would get a third term?

He might get that.

But no public events -- covered in the report or ignored by it -- suggest anything to do with Nouri.

Since Nouri's bloc walked out, you could argue the events suggest the opposite.

And elected by 194 votes? Did Nouri's bloc even support the candidate?

The Parliament has to pick three posts. That's the first step in forming a government.

The three presidencies are Speaker of Parliament, the President and the
Prime Minister-designate -- everyone's forgetting "designate" these
days. That's step one. Picking a Speaker today doesn't finish step
one.

Step two is after a prime minister-designate is named, that person then
has 30 days to put together a full cabinet. If the Constitution is
followed this time, failure to put together a full cabinet in 30 days
would mean a new person was named prime minister-designate and given the
chance. Success would mean the prime minister-designate moved from
designate to prime minister.

Now we can talk the Constitution or we can just blow smoke out our ass. Hello, AP, thanks for stinking up the room.

If you missed it, AP is like the drunk in the conversation insisting,
"It's science!" -- when, in fact, there comments are not science. And AP doesn't know the Constitution: "According to the constitution, parliament now has 30 days to elect a
president, who will then have 15 days to ask the leader of the largest
bloc in the legislature to form a government. Then a prime minister will
be picked."

First off, the "largest bloc in the legislature"? That's not the
Constitution, it's the 2010 court verdict Nouri sought ahead of the 2010
elections and then kept the verdict to himself in case he didn't need
it. The Constitution is the largest bloc from the elections -- not the
post-election bloc forming.

Second, the prime minister is not then picked.

A prime minister-designate is named. Per the Constitution, the
designate has 30 days to form a Cabinet or see someone else nominated
prime minister-designate.

The Voice of Russia notes that the new Speaker was named on a busy day for Iraq, "Earlier on Tuesday, security forces
launched an attack on Tikrit, hometown of Saddam Hussein, aiming to
revitalize a counter-offensive that began more than two weeks ago. They
initially gained control of the southern part of the city, but later
pulled back south of Tikrit after heavy fighting, officers and witnesses
said. "Iraqi forces withdrew at the beginning of the night so that they
would not be exposed to losses," but would return later, a senior army
officer said. However, any gains made in the city are likely to be
offset by militants moving back in."

QUESTION: What’s your reaction – the new parliament elected a new speaker today.QUESTION: (Off-mike.)MS. PSAKI: I’m getting an assist from Said here. The Secretary --QUESTION: (Off-mike.)MS. PSAKI: We put out a statement from the Secretary. It came out right before I came out here, so I’m not sure if you saw it.QUESTION: I didn’t see it.MS. PSAKI: Let me just reiterate some of the points that he
made. We certainly, of course, congratulate the Iraqi people on the
election of a new parliamentary speaker as well as two deputies. This
election of a speaker is the first step in the critical process of
forming a new government that can take into account the rights,
aspirations, and legitimate concerns of all of Iraq’s communities. We
urge the – Iraq’s leaders to follow this step today with rapid formation
of a new government. That means, as you all know, selection of a
president and a prime minister. We expect as they – as the meeting
breaks, and maybe that’s already happened, we’ll know more soon about
the next time they plan to meet. And obviously those are the next
appropriate steps in the process.QUESTION: Thank you.QUESTION: Stay in Iraq?MS. PSAKI: Mm-hmm.QUESTION: Without getting into the classified information, a
report that’s on Secretary Hagel’s desk – has Secretary Kerry, as a
member of the National Security Council, expressed concern over U.S.
personnel who are in Iraq and are working with different forces and
officials?MS. PSAKI: Are you speaking to military personnel, or which personnel are you referring to?QUESTION: Any officials in Iraq. Is the United States or
people in this building concerned about insider attacks for U.S.
personnel working with their Iraqi counterparts?MS. PSAKI: Well, there are a couple of different things I
think you’re referring to here, so let me just break those apart, if
that’s okay with you. I think the Pentagon confirmed yesterday that
Secretary Hagel and Chairman Dempsey received the draft of the
assessment from Central Command. Obviously, they’re the front
individuals to review that draft and they also have oversight over
military personnel who are on the ground in Iraq.Broadly speaking, certainly as the State Department and the Secretary
are always evaluating the safety and security of our personnel, the men
and women serving in a variety of capacities in Iraq, and any other
high-threat post around the world, and we take steps accordingly and as
needed. And you’re familiar with the steps we recently took. I don’t
have any of those to be – to predict at this point, but that certainly
is something we evaluate broadly speaking on nearly a daily basis about
places like Iraq.QUESTION: And specific to Iraq, are you concerned about Shia
forces aligned with Iran and about Sunni forces aligned with extremist
elements? Are those specific --MS. PSAKI: I’m just not going to speak to reports in a draft that obviously the proper officials have not yet reviewed.QUESTION: I know that you want the choice of a prime minister to the Iraqi people.MS. PSAKI: Mm-hmm.QUESTION: You’ve said – stated --MS. PSAKI: You’re familiar with our point on that.QUESTION: Yes.MS. PSAKI: Go ahead.QUESTION: I’m fully familiar with it, but --MS. PSAKI: Yes.QUESTION: But as Maliki becomes more and more polarizing, a
polarizing figure – and those were the words of someone like Barzani in
Turkey, those are the words of even allies within the Shia coalition,
even his own coalition – are you willing to support as an alternative
someone that the Iranians might support, who is Ahmed Chalabi, someone
who has been tarnished in the United States as someone who collaborated
with the enemies of the United States?MS. PSAKI: Well, we’re not going to pick or support
candidates. Obviously, as you noted, but it’s worth me repeating from
the U.S. Government, we – it’s up to the Iraqi people to determine their
leadership. We’ve expressed concern in the past about the lack of
inclusivity in Prime Minister Maliki’s leadership. That hasn’t changed.
And obviously, we want to see a future government and future leaders who
govern in a more inclusive manner. But that’s one of the next steps in
the process, and we leave that to the Iraqis to determine.QUESTION: Do you believe that Mr. Maliki, the message he gets
from this podium and other podiums and so on, that the United States
sticks to him no matter what?MS. PSAKI: I can’t evaluate for you what I believe Prime Minister Maliki hears or listens to or reads, but --QUESTION: If he gets that message, do you think that he’s getting the wrong message?MS. PSAKI: I think our message has consistently been that it’s
up to the Iraqis to determine their future leadership. So I think that
would be what anybody would hear.QUESTION: Well, if they haven’t elected him, then it means that they
don’t want him. So I mean, they have chosen, don’t you think?MS. PSAKI: We’ll let the process play itself out, Elise.QUESTION: Yes, please.MS. PSAKI: Go ahead. Iraq?QUESTION: Yes, please. I mean, you mentioned that the Iraqis
have to choose their prime minister and the president, assuming that
they have this parliament now, proper parliament president.MS. PSAKI: Mm-hmm.QUESTION: Do you have in your mind a timeframe? Because a
while ago – I mean, it’s like last week you were talking about Sunday or
10 days or something like this. Do you have a timeframe for this?MS. PSAKI: Well, so they did meet on Sunday, and obviously, this – the selection of the speaker just happened today.QUESTION: Yes.MS. PSAKI: So I think we’ll leave it to them to make any
announcements about their next planned meeting where we – and expect and
hope that they will move forward with the remaining steps in government
formation.QUESTION: And like few days ago, Prime Minister Maliki
replaced the foreign minister or asked him to leave his job or replace
him with another person. Do you have any concern and especially Zebari
has had a good relation or at least long relation with Secretary Kerry
and the State Department – is this representing any concern to you in
your relations with – foreign relations with Iraq, or it doesn’t matter?MS. PSAKI: In the selection of a new foreign minister?QUESTION: Yes.MS. PSAKI: That’s, again, an Iraqi political decision.
Obviously, you’re right that the Secretary has worked with the former
foreign minister quite a bit in the past, but we’ll work with the
leaders and the representatives who are selected by the government and
the people of Iraq.QUESTION: Was there any contact with the new foreign minister or not yet?MS. PSAKI: Not at the Secretary’s level. I don’t have anything
to read out from our team on the ground, though they remain engaged
with a range of officials on the ground.QUESTION: And who – still the same team on the ground doing contact with all this leadership?

Should a prime minister be declared any time soon, what happens in terms
of the military -- specifically the hundreds of US troops Barack has
sent into Iraq in the last weeks? Jill Reilly (Daily Mail) reminds, "The teams [of US military 'advisors'] will determine how the U.S. can
best help the Iraqi forces, then the additional teams will deploy. They
are expected to help the Iraqis improve their military systems and
commands, but not embed with the fighting units or engage in direct
combat." Eric Schmitt and Michael R. Gordon (New York Times) report, "A classified military assessment of Iraq’s
security forces concludes that many units are so deeply infiltrated by
either Sunni extremist informants or Shiite personnel backed by Iran
that any Americans assigned to advise Baghdad’s forces could face risks
to their safety, according to United States officials."

Two nuns
and three orphans under their care have been released in Iraq by
kidnappers linked to ISIS, the Al Qaeda-inspired Sunni militant group
also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Speaking to
AsiaNews, Chaldean Patriarch Mar Louis Raphael I Sako expressed relief
that there was “finally good news” in the country where ISIS, under the
banner of a new Islamic “caliphate,” has captured large swathes of
territory from the Shia led government in Baghdad.
Sister Atur and Sister Miskinta and the three young people went
missing 28 June. The two Chaldean nuns belonged to the Congregation of
the Daughters of the Immaculate Mary. Together with their consoeurs, the
sisters help run a family home for orphans and abandoned children in
Mosul, near the Chaldean Archbishopric.
Patriarch Sako told AsiaNews that people in the city “contributed to their liberation.”

Turning to the topic of veterans . . .

US House Rep Mike Fitzpatrick: Ms. Ruell, you testified in your
opening statement that you came to the VA around 2007 and within a short
period of time in your tenure at VA, you began to notice things things
were not working as they should, that claims were not being processed
timely, claims were being lost. Fellow employees were reporting that
mail was being set aside and that in some cases mail was being shredded.
You know, that we have constituents, perhaps a widow of a WWII veteran
who sits down and writes a traditional letter, hand writes a letter,
puts a stamp on it, and sent it to the Philadelphia VA office believing
that claim would be processed, that that simple request might be heard.
That letter might have been shredded. You went on to find and report to
your managers that duplicate payments were being made and as a
dedicated employee of the VA you tried to fix it. You asked that those
duplicate claims be recaptured, be brought back in, to be ignored.
Around the same time, I was sent by the people of the Philadelphia
region to come back to Congress to serve them. And I had served a
previous term back in the 109th Congress, 2005, 2006. So I had the
chance to go back and hire dedicated case workers, who served veterans,
who worked with me in the past. They are veterans themselves. And
within a short period of time, 2011, they were reporting to me that
something was wrong at the Veterans Administration -- not as they
remembered it. Claims were being delayed, they couldn't get answers,
they were sending letters, the letters were never received. And we were
hearing the same from our constituents. I did not know you at the
time, but you were saying the same thing to your leadership at the
Philadelphia regional office. For that, you were criticized, you were
castigated, you were abused, you were disciplined. I think you ought to
be applauded for trying to change the system from within. I think
you're owed an apology from the Veterans Administration. I think you're
fellow comrades who are here with you today, work with you in other
offices, they should be applauded. There are thousands of dedicated
Veterans Affairs employees who try to do the right thing from within.
Our nation's veterans deserve an apology -- some of them pass away while
waiting for their claims to be processed. Ms. Ruel, you provided
information when the administration at the Philadelphia office was not
listening to my office, flood data, duplicate payments, which we wrote
to Gen Shinseki when you brought that information to us in September of
2012. And a response was received in February of 2013 from the
undersecretary essentially that if there are any problems, they're so
minor that we don't need to change any systems in order to address them.
Knowing what you know, Ms. Ruell, how can the administration of the VA
provide that kind of answer?Kristen Ruell: I think it's the easiest answer to just ignore the
problem. From working with the OIG the last four weeks, they're baffled
as to data mine the issue and find the problem. But I don't think an
answer of 'it's inconclusive' or 'we're not sure how to figure this
problem out' is a fair answer to veterans who have been waiting for
their benefits and they're sitting in a box because they have two claim
numbers and we're not sure what we're going to do with that claim.US House Rep Mike Fitzpatrick: Ms. Ruell, just last week, the
Philadelphia VA acknowledged an entitlement and benefit backlog of 49.6%
of 42,141 veterans served by the Philadelphia office waiting 125 days
for an answer to their claims. Based on your experience, is this an
accurate number for the Philadelphia office?Kristen Ruell: No. If we didn't have that memo, I think the number would be much higher. US House Rep Mike Fitzpatrick: The Obama administration has promised
to end the veterans backlog by 2015. With 247,000 claims still stuck
in the backlog, do you think this process is feasible?Kristen Ruell: Absolutely not. It breeds corruption in the regional
offices and we might say that claim has been processed but it's probably
not processed correctly. And we probably didn't help the veteran the
way we were supposed to. US House Rep Mike Fitzpatrick: Are veterans of our nation passing away while waiting for their claims to be processed?Kristen Ruell: Many.US House Rep Mike Fitzpatrick: Can you estimate how many? Kristen Ruell: No, but I know that that's the easiest kind of claim
to do. If a veteran passes away, you hit one button and you get the
same amount of credit as if you worked the claim and granted the
benefit.

Kristen Ruell is with the VA as is Ronald Robinson and as was Javier Soto -- the three witnesses on the first panel.

That's from last night's House Veterans Affairs Committee hearing. Yes,
last night. The Committee continues to hold hearings and, if it means a
night hearing, they do that. A veteran who's a friend and who I spoke
to after last night's hearing asked that I point that out and that I
point out the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee is doing nothing.

The VA is in crisis status right now. And Senate Committee Chair Bernie
Sanders chose to instead focus on acupuncture. Then a hearing in
mid-May where the Chair wanted to keep saying no one had proven any
misdeeds by the VA. This hearing was after Chris Cuomo pointed out --
on CNN while interviewing Bernie -- that Senator Sanders sounded like an
apologist for the VA.

And that's Bernie Sanders started losing veterans. When all of June
went by, after the allegations had proven to be accurate, without a
hearing, Sanders lost more veterans support.

This week, the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee -- which has spent far
too much of the month of May whining about 'poor' Eric Shinseki -- will
meet again. Many veterans are wondering why?

They're noticing that Socialist Bernie Sanders is more focused on scoring points for Democrats than he is on serving veterans.

We're not done with the hearing. Tomorrow we'll note some points House
Veterans Affairs Committee Chair Jeff Miller made. I was hoping we
could have a news release on that but it's not to be.

Why did I want that?

The VA's done a shell game and that's now fact.

It's not me, a few years back saying, "This change is a mistake, this will be a shell game . . ."

No, everything I warned about came to be.

And I'm not happy about that. I'm not happy that a number of
Congressional members serving on the VA Committees in the House and
Senate just knew that everything would be fine.

Just knew.

No, it wasn't.

And I'm tired of screaming.

We were right. The 'fix' for the backlog? It was a fix -- it was a scam.

Next year, the backlog will not be gone.

And maybe, along with some members of the Committees, some members of the press could admit that they were wrong?

Best moment of the hearing other than that?

I loved when Chair Jeff Miller quoted from former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates' book Duty to slam Eric Shinseki.

(I noted this outside the snapshot last week but we are moving towards a
smaller snapshot. We did it Monday night, not so much here.)

As Javier Soto noted, "Provisional ratings rules simply hid wait times.
Once a claim is given a provisional rating, it's not counted toward the
backlog. However, the claim has no final rating. It's still
unresolved." And that's a surprise to many but we said this is exactly
what would happen and we said it before the system started, we stated it
the first time the VA informed Congress of this 'fix.'

Followers

About Me

I'm Michael, Mike to my friends. College student working his way through. I'm also Irish-American and The New York Times can kiss my Irish ass. And check out Trina's Kitchen on my links, that's my mother's site.